AVCon Calmdown

Hi everyone! Over this last weekend we were at AVCon! If you’re in Adelaide, you might have seen us there - if not, you probably didn’t, unless you have access to the convention centre security cameras or something.

The whole week leading up to it was pretty exhausting for our whole team, so we’ve been taking a few days to relax before getting back to it. Right now, I thought it might be a good time to write down some of my thoughts (our thoughts, really) about how it went, and what our plans for the future are now.

Anvilheart at AVCon 2023

The last components of Anvilheart content before AVCon were submitted by Sean at 3:50am on Saturday morning. The last change, giving characters coloured names in dialogue, was made at 8:18am as I was waiting for my hair dye to set in properly.

The first change made after AVCon started was committed 37 minutes into the first day. This, I presume, is Just How These Things Go.

The game was, honestly, a little shaky; most of the connective tissue had been built over the past three weeks, and that’s just not the kind of thing that happens without a lot of problems to fix. We also learned very quickly the thing we were already suspecting, which was that the demo we had built was a bit too long for an event like AVCon.

Most casual con-goers are looking for something they can pick up, play around with and have a bit of fun for a few minutes, then put down again, which is simply not a format that Anvilheart really works in; the point is the story and vibe of the game first and the gameplay second, so to only present gameplay would be to miss what we are actually hoping to interest people with, but to include that targeting point (as we aimed to) meant a game demo that included ten minutes of dialogue.

Having said that, the game seemed well received! We had a good number of people through playing it, and it felt like a lot of them genuinely got what we were trying to do, narratively. Even with a lot of placeholder assets, chunks of first draft dialogue and zeroth draft gameplay components, people were interested in the ideas, which is really exciting to see. 

There are a few things we need to fix up about this version of the demo–trying to condense the introduction and dialogue where we can, replacing the various art placeholders, rethinking some of the gameplay features and how people interact with the demo as a whole–but for now it feels like the core of it is solid, which honestly feels amazing. And it couldn’t have been done without our artists, who did some really good work on very short notice, or my partner Elle, who helped us out with implementing dialogue and stitching everything together, or Sean, who I think is the only reason we actually got to Saturday without any major breakdowns and WITH all of the dialogue written. And… me, I guess. I did some things too.

Good work, team.

Other AVCon Business

Since I, Emma, am writing this, I get to include a bit about other things that happened at AVCon too.

Obviously, we were in the Indie Games Room most of the time, so we got to hang out with a lot of other local game devs and see what everyone was working on. It was really cool to see the mix of games that are complete and released now, alongside other projects that had seen great progress since I last saw them, alongside a couple of things I hadn’t really seen before. 

I also had the wonderful opportunity to talk on a panel about women in the gaming industry, which… was a little surreal, honestly? I struggle to see myself as a woman from an external point of view, so to have other people view me that way and to be put in a position that relies on them viewing me that way feels kind of jarring, if not unpleasant.

I was on this panel alongside Dr Susannah Emery, who teaches game design and media at the University of South Australia, Vela Noble, who has worked on animation for Netflix and Dreamworks, and Chantal Ryan, whose work on darkwebSTREAMER I have been following and looking up to for a while now. Which was more than a little intimidating for little me who has been doing this seriously for a little less than a year now, but it turned out to be fine! I am reminded, once again, that all of the people I look up to and respect hugely and am in awe of are still… real people, right?

We talked for a little while beforehand and everyone was friendly and welcoming and kind, Chantal saw I was nervous and said we were welcome to pass things off to her if we got overwhelmed, which I didn’t end up doing but I appreciated having as an option. Then we went up on stage, and… in hindsight I wish I had thought to phrase some things differently, but it was a good time and I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to meet and share a space with this group of really cool people.

Where We’re Going Next

As I wrote earlier, this week has mostly been resting and recovery, but we also need to start looking at our future plans for the next few months. 

The demo of Anvilheart that we presented at AVCon needed some major work done still to make it “presentable”, but it still got a stronger and more positive reception than we were really expecting for that style of game. We’re going to be taking the next couple of months to bring it up to higher quality standards, and then the new and improved Anvilheart demo will be at PAX Aus in October! Now featuring, theoretically, a more refined story and less placeholder art.

It won’t be as harsh as the last few weeks have been for us as developers, but it will still be a trek to get there. I hope you will come along with us :)